Best Buy Loaner Phone Filled With Pornography

By AlexJarvisFebruary 11, 2009

Porn and Electronics. They go together about as well as Peanut butter and Salmonella. Now Rudy Phillips is intimately aware of this connection; after sending out her phone to be serviced by Best Buy Mobile, she received a loaner phone that was filled with… well, you know.

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair to me to pick up a telephone that you loan me, that you loan me, and look at some trash like this,” Phillip said.

No, it’s not fair. Whats even more troubling is the fact that any pictures were on there to begin with. Chances are, if pictures are on the phone, there will be personal data as well, as a recent post highlighted.

Of course, Best Buy is ‘investigating’ the issue.

Best Buy said they are looking into the situation to ensure it does not happen again.

“At Best Buy, we are committed to protecting customer data privacy. We’re investigating the situation and are fully prepared to change our procedures if necessary,” said Justin Barber, of Best Buy.

I don’t see how this says in any way that Best Buy isn’t taking the data privacy policies they hold seriously or not?

Not only that. But it doesn’t say if there was other data on there. Not to mention what about the sicko who had the phone before her who didn’t take the time to clear the porn. Probably leaving it on there on purpose.

I also like how no one mentions that in the past few years the actual extent best buy has taken to protect customer data. Or that any employees that don’t take it seriously usually aren’t around long. it is a serious offensive to misplace or confuse customer data.

Make sure you delete all your data off the phone before giving it back. Clearly they do not clear the data on the phones. Honestly this is both the customer’s and Best Buy’s fault. If you borrow a phone and load it up with personal data, you should clear it before giving it back. And Best Buy should be clearing the data also to ensure they are not giving the next guy info about the last user.

@Corporate_guy: I agree that the customer who returned the phone should have cleared the data. But ultimately Best Buy is responsible for whatever is on the phone they are lending or selling, not their customer.

@Corporate_guy:
Agreed. It’s dumb to assume that XYZ company will do a wipe for you.

Case in point: I had to get a replacement phone from T-Mobile (still under warranty), and they gave me a loaner while the bad phone was being shipped. Sure enough, the phone had a full call log, including voice mail number and contact names. Also, the previous user had not cleared the texts, so I could see a ton of this guy’s plans, life, habits etc.

I quickly deleted the information, since I didn’t care, and didn’t think the guy would want his stuff floating around. I also made sure to delete my information after the 2 days I had the phone.

So…meh. The fact that some idiot left porn on his/her phone doesn’t surprise me. Just tells me they’re a stupid idiot.

Although they shouldn’t be giving out phones with porn, I saw this story on the news last night and it’s not like it just popped up when she turned it on. She went digging through the phone and found it. Yes, it shouldn’t have been there, but be careful what you look for.

I think the point is that Best Buy doesn’t care if they give out loaners, and then fail to delete the personal data that has accumulated from the last person to whom the phone was given. So you use a loaner, and then some weirdo gets it two weeks later and sees all of your friends’ numbers and pictures, etc.

Now I understand that if you have a loaner you should probably not use it for pictures, etc – and promptly delete anything on the phone, but Best Buy needs to make sure that has been done.

On a side note, even though she is an adult, etc… She shouldn’t be given a porn phone from Best Buy. Porn is offensive to some people. What if it had been filled with a bunch of religious prayers, etc…? You people would be raising holy hell.

To the lady who found Buckets O’ Cum in her DVD player, that is HILARIOUS. Hahahaha. Stupid-ass Best Buy.

I am a Best Buy Geek Squad agent and I have to say that every bit of training and communication from corporate says to protect customer information. We also have to take personal responsibility for each device by signing off on a functionality/data check on each return. That is backed up by my in-store management with a serious random and frequent spot checks of any data storage device that could be put back in customer hands. Corporate has terminated people for this and has us sign off on a yearly statement that we understand this will continue to be a consequence of failures in these cases.

I can’s speak for any other store but I can say that as an employee at my Best Buy we do take this type of situation very seriously. If there was data present on this customer’s loaner phone then I would point the finger at one person rather than the corporate machine. I would rush to add that every time a customer has come back to my store claiming they found porn on there phone/computer/device they have somehow managed to delete it before bringing it to our attention. Each time we’ve issued gift cards, filed reports to corporate and tried to mollify the customer with no proof it actually happened. I am beginning to think that people are gaming the system as making false complaints in some cases to try to get discounts and gift cards.

I’m amazed at how many people apparently keep er…personal pictures on their phone. I’ve found a few phones at the retail store I worked at and to try to find out whose phone it was, I would look at the pictures (a lot of times the phone would turn out to belong to an employee.) After a couple of times, I stopped doing this.